Buckeyes in the Sweet 16

After this weekend’s wins over the Gauchos of UC Santa Barbara and the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech. Ohio St didn’t play their absolute best in either game but certainly did enough to get the wins. Diebler was hot Friday night and Turner filled the nets today. So they advance to the St. Louis Regional and will play Tennessee Friday at 7:10pm EDT. I must say I am a bit concerned about this matchup. The Vols play a deep rotation and an uptempo style and I hope that doesn’t wear down an Ohio St team that has zero depth. Of course, when you make the Sweet 16 you should expect to play good opponents.

Of course the story of the first weekend, as is usually the case, is the upsets. I don’t think anyone outside Athens, OH saw the Bobcats plastering of Georgetown Thursday evening coming, and I don’t think anyone saw Northern Iowa beating #1 overall seed Kansas Saturday evening. UNI is a good team that brought their A game at the right time. And Ali Farokmanesh wasn’t afraid to take the open shot to try and win the game, rather pulling it out, getting fouled, and playing not to lose. After the dust settles with all the upsets the fact is Kansas and Villanova were the only teams on the top 2 seed lines that failed to advance. OTOH Baylor is the only #3 still around and Purdue of all teams the only #4 still around.